The Red Reaver & The Black Clever

As Eso was preparing to leave for the House of Bells, the entire household was alive with excitement.

Eso was very nervous but also very excited. Today would be the start of a great new adventure that would allow him to prove his worth and bring his family great honor.

Tepet Ejava herself was going to be here to see him off, how exciting! There were even rumors that General Tepet Arada himself would perhaps make an appearance! Tepet Ramon would be here, of course and would Tepet Calsi… who they would be escorting him to the school…. it was going to be very awkward being alone with the two of them…. but Eso would make the best of it.

Leaving his shared bed chamber Eso almost tripped over a parcel wrapped in silk cloth and tied with a ribbon.

What could this be, thought Eso, as he looked closer, spying his name written on a small paper card.

It must be a gift of good fortune for me he mused. It would be rude to open such a gift alone, I will have to open it with the rest of the family. I wonder who sent it, they must be shy or embarrassed.

The send off gathering was very exciting, so exciting that Eso nearly forgot to open his present and didn’t until Tepet Ramon complained loudly (and rudely) that they would have to start traveling soon, or they would not make it to their destination in time.

Nervously Eso looked at the present wrapped in silk, secretly glad that the party had died down and there would be less of a scene…. he did wish that Tepet Ramon wasn’t standing so close.

Pulling the ribbon and sliding of the silk cloth revealed two Daiklaves one larger and of red jade, and the other, smaller, more curved and of black jade. What wonderful presents! Thought Eso…. who gave me just weapons?!

The only clue to the giver of the gift was on the backside of the paper card, which read in a angular script.

“Eso, may fame and fortune smile upon you. These swords are my gift to you to make up for anything I may have previously owed you. Consider this my debt paid in full. And remember that I shall always think of you, even when such memories remind me of great loss.”

Ragara Dumat was not always adept at the arcane arts. Up until five years ago he was a newly Exalted Dynast, hailing from a prestigious bloodline within House Ragara. Possessed of natural physical talent and keen mind, he found himself being groomed for a position in the small but dedicated martial wing of the family. A favorite son of his father, he often accompanied him on hunting trips with clients and acquaintances. It was on one of these hunting trips that his life was irrevocably changed.

Hoping to impress his father, Dumat had taken off on his own to follow the trail of a buck-ogre. After an arduous six hours following the creature, he cornered it in the lair it had made amidst some unmapped ruins. Having weakened the creature with arrow fire during a few encounters on the trail, he confidently squared off with the beast atop a raised platform. During the heated battle, in which the buck-ogre slashed him several times as he pierced its hide again and again with his spear, Exalt and animal blood flowed freely from the combatants into a set of unnoticed grooves in the platform’s stone. As Dumat dealt the killing blow, jamming his spear through the creature’s heart and using the haft to vault onto its shoulders and plunge his short sword through one of its head’s temples, he was blown backwards by an explosion of smoke and frigid wind. Picking himself up off the stone of the platform, he turned to regard a reality-defying figure seemingly made of swirling ice and mist. A series of words in a language he could not recognize at the time (which he now knows to have been Old Realm) came from the form, and suddenly a bony claw the size of a ballista bolt shot out of the darkness and pierced straight through Dumat’s center. As everything faded to black he faintly heard a commotion from the surrounding woods and the sound of his father yelling…

Dumat awoke a month later in an unfamiliar bed in the medical ward of his father’s estate. A steward explained to him that his father had been watching the whole ordeal with the buck-ogre, assessing his son’s capabilities, and had intervened as a result of “The Incident.” He had spent the last month under the effects of a seemingly incurable disease, which had ate its way through much of his muscle mass and kept him in a state of perpetual fever and agony. This illness had finally seemed to run its course a few days prior to his awakening, which the steward reluctantly let Dumat know coincided with his body briefly turning bronze for about ten minutes.

The next few months brought many changes to Dumat’s life. With his strength diminished, and seemingly unlikely to ever truly return, he had to completely relearn his martial skills to adapt to only having his quickness to rely on. Strange visions clouded his mind at night, and he devoted himself to poring over tomes in his family’s library to try and understand them. When he began manifesting near spell-like powers, his family paid for a teacher from the Heptagram to privately tutor Dumat. This tutor, a wizened Air Aspect named Ragara Bhasus (one of the few among the banking house in semi-recent history to show any aptitude for sorcery as well as a great-uncle of Dumat’s), helped Dumat focus his oddly-begotten arcane talents into something approximating a proper sorcerous style. His powers still have a wild edge about them, however, and his anima banner flares seemingly at the drop of a hat.

In all of this, Dumat lost the favor of his father and close relations. None have directly spoken to him since “The Incident.” His mother, being a strict follower of the Immaculate Order’s teachings, had advocated that he be put to death immediately after hearing what went on. His father, a pragmatic individual, saw the value in another Sorcerer in House Ragara’s ranks. Though he had let what affection he had for his son die in the light of knowing he may some day have to put down Dumat if his powers threaten the family, he firmly believed he could get some use out of the young Exalt before making any hasty decisions. Dumat was enrolled in the House of Bells with a full compliment of the family’s resources and artifacts under the pretense of becoming a battle-mage, allowing the family further time to assess his progress and determine how best to use him…

The adventure log is where you list the sessions and adventures your party has been on, but for now, we suggest doing a very light “story so far” post. Just give a brief overview of what the party has done up to this point. After each future session, create a new post detailing that night’s adventures.

One final tip: Don’t stress about making your Obsidian Portal campaign look perfect. Instead, just make it work for you and your group. If everyone is having fun, then you’re using Obsidian Portal exactly as it was designed, even if your adventure log isn’t always up to date or your characters don’t all have portrait pictures.